Page:A Recommendation of Inoculation - John Morgan.djvu/18

 If I mistake not the exact epocha, it was just at a time when that magnanimous Princess was about to engage in war with so formidable a power as the Turks, and in which she came off so victorious. Far from dreading the consequence of inoculation, at so critical a period, she judged it to be a matter of the highest importance, to secure against taking the small-pox in the natural way, which the war might otherwise introduce, and the fear of its dreadful effects might impede the operation of her arms. In that particular, she has held forth an example worthy of our imitation, and which by the event proved the wisdom of the measure.

From the present posture of public affairs and the moral impracticability of preventing the spreading of the small-pox in the natural way, nothing can be more interesting to this country, than the manner in which the present attempt to introduce inoculation may be received and encouraged. If it were once to establish itself in this province it would be the surest means of extending its salutary influence throughout the neighbouring colonies that are in a similar situation, and the practice of it being kept up, the disorder would never become formidable again, nor excite that panick it has often done in times past.

Happy for mankind, wherever inoculation has once had a fair trial, those prejudices, that are apt to infect vulgar and weak minds, soon vanish, from the advantages that attend the practice of